A Short History of Pittsburgh | Page 9

on
Philadelphia for six thousand kegs of flour and three thousand kegs of
whisky--a disproportion as startling as Falstaff's intolerable deal of sack
to one half-penny-worth of bread. Congress, in 1791, passed an excise

law to assist in paying the war debt. The measure was very unpopular,
and its operation was forcibly resisted, particularly in Pittsburgh, which
was noted then, as now, for the quantity and quality of its whisky.
There were distilleries on nearly every stream emptying into the
Monongahela. The time and circumstances made the tax odious. The
Revolutionary War had just closed, the pioneers were in the midst of
great Indian troubles, and money was scarce, of low value, and very
hard to obtain. The people of the new country were unused to the
exercise of stringent laws. The progress of the French Revolution
encouraged the settlers to account themselves oppressed by similar
tyrannies, against which some of them persuaded themselves similar
resistance should be made. Genêt, the French demagogue, was sowing
sedition everywhere. Lafayette's participation in the French Revolution
gave it in America, where he was deservedly beloved, a prestige which
it could never have gained for itself. Distillers who paid the tax were
assaulted; some of them were tarred and feathered; others were taken
into the forest and tied to trees; their houses and barns were burned;
their property was carried away or destroyed. Several thousand
insurgents assembled at Braddock's Field, and marched on Pittsburgh,
where the citizens gave them food and submitted to a reign of terror.
Then President Washington sent an army of fifteen thousand troops
against them, and they melted away, as a mob will ever do when the
strong arm of government smites it without fear or respect.
[Illustration: Conestoga wagon]
XII
It was not long after the close of the Revolutionary War before
Pittsburgh was recognized as the natural gateway of the Atlantic
seaboard to the West and South, and the necessity for an improved
system of transportation became imperative. The earliest method of
transportation through the American wilderness required the eastern
merchants to forward their goods in Conestoga wagons to
Shippensburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown,
Maryland, and thence to Pittsburgh on packhorses, where they were
exchanged for Pittsburgh products, and these in turn were carried by

boat to New Orleans, where they were exchanged for sugar, molasses,
and similar commodities, which were carried through the gulf and
along the coast to Baltimore and Philadelphia. For passenger travel the
stage-coach furnished the most luxurious method then known.
[Illustration: Stage-coach]
The people of Pennsylvania had given considerable attention to inland
improvements and as early as 1791 they began to formulate the daring
project of constructing a canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh,
with a portage road over the crest of the Alleghany Mountains. In 1825,
the governor appointed commissioners for making surveys, certain
residents of Pittsburgh being chosen on the board, and in 1826
(February 25th) the Legislature passed an act authorizing the
commencement of work on the canal at the expense of the State. The
western section was completed and the first boat entered Pittsburgh on
November 10, 1829. Subsequent acts provided for the various eastern
sections, including the building of the portage railroad over the
mountains, and by April 16, 1834, a through line was in operation from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The termini of the road were Hollidaysburg,
1,398 feet below the mountain summit, and Johnstown, 1,771 feet
below the summit. The boats were taken from the water like
amphibious monsters and hauled up the ten inclined planes by
stationary engines. The total cost of the canal and portage railroad was
about ten million dollars, and the entire system was sold to the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857 (June 25th) for $7,500,000.
The importance of canal transportation in the popular mind is shown by
the fact that in 1828, when the Pennsylvania Legislature granted a
charter to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company (which never
constructed its road), the act stated that the purpose of the railroad was
to connect Pittsburgh with the canal at Massillon, Ohio. The railroad
quickly superseded the canal, however, and when men perceived that
the mountains could be conquered by a portage road, it was a natural
step to plan the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio railroads on a
system of easy grades, so that all obstacles of height and distance were
annihilated. The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated April 13,
1846, and completed its roadway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh

February 15, 1854. The canal was for a time operated by the
Pennsylvania Canal Company in the interest of the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company, but its use was gradually abandoned. The division
from Pittsburgh to Johnstown ceased to be operated in 1864, and that
portion which was in the Juniata Valley was used until 1899, while the
portion